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Just exercise 3 times a week and eat more or less than your calorie needs according to what you're trying to do. Right, eat less if trying to lose weight and e

• gaius 16y ago
  But what if you are trying to lose fat and gain muscle? One requires a calorie deficit, the other a calorie surplus. So do one at a time, but which one depends on you. What exactly are you training for?
• akadien 16y ago
  Eat meat and veggies. Eliminate any foods that are white and come in a box or bag from the middle of the supermarket. Walk a lot in between working out, and swim from time to time.
  • mcantor 16y ago
    Seconded. Eat less rice, bread and pasta. When you do, eat brown rice, and whole grain pasta & bread.
• pushingbits 16y ago
  Go for a caloric surplus (and hit proteins) shortly after you finish your workout when your muscles are rebuilding / recharging, while keeping a caloric deficit for the whole day.
  • mcantor 16y ago
    I have heard this idea tossed around a lot. Is there any cite-able scientific evidence out there which supports it?
• gcv 16y ago
  Do you really need to do both? Seems to me you should lose fat first, for the health benefits if nothing else. Try two things: rowing and push-ups. Rowing is spectacularly good cardiovascular exercise, and once you work your way up to 45+ minutes a day, you'll lose weight fairly rapidly. Rowing does not build muscle, but it does tone what you have. Once you've lost fat and toned up, you might actually like the results. If you don't, then start weight training. Starting Strength, etc. As for push-ups, they're just plain good for you. Start something like the "hundred push-ups" program. For your diet, just eat healthy meals and don't obsess with counting calories for now.
  • jnorthrop 16y ago
    Muscles don't get "toned." They get stronger or weaker. If you want to get "toned" you need to lose fat.
• ahoyhere 16y ago
  Have to disagree with people who say you do one and not the other. Building muscle, without changing your diet, will cause changes in your body that will reduce the impact of what you eat. A pound of muscle takes ~100 calories a day to survive, a pound of fat ~10. It also changes your body in other, more subtle ways. Serious low-carb dieters (as opposed to people who just binge on meat instead of cake) often do weight-training. (Especially women!) They eat 11-15 calories/lb of current body weight, with lots of protein, which sustains them healthily and creates a caloric deficit. (And the ketosis helps.)
  • Aron 16y ago
    "A pound of muscle takes ~100 calories a day to survive" This defies math when on the order of 1/3rd of your weight is muscle. The more commonly cited value is 50 calories a pound, and even that appears too high. This article cites 6 calories per pound: http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/cals.htm http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/cals.htm
    • ahoyhere 16y ago
      Thanks for the science!
• einaros 16y ago
  That's a pretty difficult path to follow. Chances are you'll end up not eating enough, and start burning muscle in addition to fat. If you lose more than about 1 kg / ~2.2 lbs a week, you're at risk of doing just that. On the other extreme, you can easily wind up eating too much, and gaining more than fat than actual muscle. To really know what's going on, you'd of course have to measure actual body fat lost, rather than just weight lost. Muscles weigh more than fat, some build muscle more easily than others, etc. Generally I'd say there's a reason most body builders bulk up for months, then spend time dropping excess weight, rather than aiming for a steady increase in muscle mass with zero fat gain. For the most, my experience is that aiming for slow weight / fat loss through any muscle exercise is also bound to provide some muscle build up. That seems adequate for most people.
• apmee 16y ago
  It's much much harder to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously, than it is to simply focus on one then the other. They are fundamentally at odds with each other: to lose fat, you need less calories; to gain muscle, you need more calories. The advice I've heard is to build strength and size first, by eating lots and training hard until you have the muscles you're after. Then you can turn your attention to losing fat and maintaining muscle, by eating less (though you'll still need more calories than before, as larger muscles burn a lot more energy even at rest), lowering the intensity of your training, and focusing more on cardiovascular exercise like jogging and cycling.
  • dkarl 16y ago
    Up to a certain point, you can do both just by exercising more and harder. A complete beginner starting from zero volume will definitely lose fat and gain muscle if they start working out, as long as they eat no more than enough to maintain their weight. The only problem is that you can only do it if you're pretty poorly trained to start with. Most people who work out seriously are well past the point where they can do both at the same time.